


can't forget the words you never said

by aylee_ann



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ, 소녀시대 | Girls' Generation | SNSD
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 23:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8554687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aylee_ann/pseuds/aylee_ann
Summary: It's not a love story. They're not in love, theoretically.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nikatsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikatsu/gifts).



It’s already the second week of SM’s training program and she still can’t get the buildings and halls straight. It’s like the places keep changing somehow and she always wounds up at the right time but shamefully at the wrong place.

“Damn it.” She curses inwardly, spinning around, squinting her eyes to get a better overview of her current building. She’s got a map clutched in her hand (one she was handed when she first arrived) and yet it hasn’t been able to prevent her from getting lost.

“Lost?” Someone speaks up from behind.

Yoona whirls back, taking in the sight of Shim Changmin. He’s a newbie like her (arrived promptly 5 minutes after her in the foyer on that fateful day). Unlike her, though, he’s already put his name on the map. She remembers hearing girls gossiping and giggling idiotically over him in the bathroom. Pathetic.

“I’m fine.” She says curtly, shutting down any possibility of him offering her help. It’s not that she doesn’t need it, it’s just that it would be better not to get involved with every girl’s favorite. She doesn’t want to end up in anyone’s black book.

“Alright, Yoona.” He says nonchalantly, shoving his hands down his pockets while narrowing his eyes at her. He studies her for a while until a smile gives him away. “Go down this hall and take the exit on your left. Walk straight ahead for a few minutes and you’ll see it on your right.”

He turns on his heels and leaves. The words ‘thank you’ are somehow stuck in her throat.

-

Funny how out of all people, Changmin is the one running after her when things go down the drain in the common room to find her sobbing her heart out on the staircase at the exit area.

When the door swings open, both stare at each other in utter disbelief. Yoona wipes her tears away, rises from where she’s sitting and attempts to leave when Changmin blocks her way.

“Let me go.” She pleads and dares to look into his eyes for the first time. The only result she gets from it are tears threatening to spill over.

“I heard what they said.” Changmin explains slowly, touching her elbow lightly. It takes everything in her not to back away. It’s almost like he scalded her with one single touch. “It’s mean and not true. Why do you let them get into your head? They’re just a horde of mean girls trying to sabotage you and devalue your talents.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You’re already a golden boy and everyone’s favorite on top of that.” She shoots back with a glint of anger flashing in her eyes. 

“I’ve seen you dancing and I’ve heard you singing. You’re anything but just a pretty face.”

It almost gets a smile out of her.

“Stalker.” She manages, stamping down the urge to grin.

-

Changmin is the closest to a friend Yoona has during her first months there.

She ignores the side-eyes some girls give her when she takes the seat opposite him at lunch and places her tray on the table. He doesn’t bother looking up from his sandwich and half-finished soup. There’s only a slight upturn at the corner of his lips.

-

“You’re a stalker. A creepy one at that even.” Yoona protests with a hint of a smile, crouching down to tune the music off resonating from the radio.

It’s well past midnight and Yoona has once again occupied his practice room. (Level 0, R07) He’s been leaning against the door frame for almost half an hour when Yoona finally decides to acknowledge his presence.

“You’re a thief. A shameless one, indeed.” He counters, taking a few steps closer. “It’s obviously my practice room and you know it.”

“Nothing is yours.” She says matter-of-factly and throws him a pointed look.

“Oh and by the way, you’re doing it all wrong.” Changmin brushes past her, leans towards the small radio set on the floor and turns on the music. “You’re dancing like a robot.”

“Really?” She rolls her eyes but takes his hand when he sticks it out to pull her up.

“I’ll show you.” Yoona feels like bursting out laughing. He’s never been that exceptionally good at dancing himself and here he is offering her a tutor lesson.

“Alright, Shim. Show me what you’ve got.” 

-

Somewhere along the way she just stops giving a damn about what people think. She starts living her life without boundaries, despite fear and beyond fear which is when people start noticing her instead of passing by her like she’s invisible.

She might not be the queen but she’s surely climbing her way up to the throne.

-

After hundreds of her post-it notes stuck on his personal locker, endless shared practice sessions and thousand speculations of will he- won’t he (which she makes every other day), Shim Changmin debuts in a group of five named DBSK.

He comes back from his first TV performance to another note stuck on his locker.

-

“What if I won’t make it?”

“I’m sure you’re going to be the first one called in.”

“You’re not the one to make the decision.” She points out, heaving an audible sigh. “Even if you were, it would be invalid. You’re biased.”

“Fair enough.” Changmin bumps his shoulder against her all the while grinning.

They found themselves in their practice room again. It’s 2:03 am in the morning. Yoona should be getting ready for her next training session while Changmin should get some rest before he heads out for the shooting early that morning. In the end, they are still sitting on the floor, back against the wall, staring at their own terrifying reflections from the mirror.

“No but honestly, there’s like a chance I won’t make it to the final cut.”

“Stop saying things that won’t be true. You’ll jinx it.”

“Will you run away with me?”

“Like in those romantic movies where the main leads are desperately in love but can’t be together?” Changmin throws his head back, laughing.

“You know it won’t be in that sense.”

“I’m positive you will make it and if you don’t I am happy to run off with you.” Changmin says earnestly.

“You’re only saying it because you think I will be chosen.”

“Won’t you?” Yoona pinches his arm for that.

-

Yoona turns into SNSD’s Yoona.

She debuts on August 5th 2007. Changmin doesn’t show up at the showcase (only leaves her a voice message that’s five minutes long). It would be a lie to say she wasn’t disappointed not having him wishing her good luck backstage before getting on stage. It feels strange being there without him because he’s been such a huge part of this journey.

Changmin surprises her with a congratulatory cake, candles and flowers when she enters the familiar practice room.

“Too bad we’re trapped here, the get-away plan has got to wait.” He jokes, holding out the bouquet of flowers.

-

Despite everyone’s on-going theory about Changmin and Yoona being in love and whatnot, it’s Donghae she holds hands and goes on dates with.

(Dates with Changmin don’t count. They casually meet in their practice room once in a while, call each other to eat out and decide on who has to pay by making absurd bets. They go to the movies a couple of times but romantic movies are always a no-no.)

-

‘I know what kind of face you would make when you wake up tomorrow to this voice message.’ A nervous laugh escapes his lips. ‘Funny how we started with five and now it seems like we will end with just two. All those promises, memories together seem to be fading into dust.’

There’s a long pause before he continues with a trembling voice.

‘I wish you were here Yoona. I–’

Beep.

-

Yoochun, Junsu and Jaejoong submit an application to the Seoul Central District Court to determine the validity of their contract with SM Entertainment, signaling the end of an era of DBSK.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the ending. It goes official not long after that, DBSK has two members, not five.

Changmin’s heart breaks into million pieces, not even Yoona can pick up the pieces for him.

-

Time, the only cure for a broken heart, will be able to heal the wounds. At least, that’s what people keep saying.

He goes on stage with Yunho, trying not to let the aching void the past members left behind get to him. He occasionally has to stop himself from making foolish calls or sending absurd messages (deleting phone numbers doesn’t help, at all).

He learns the hard way that time, in fact, doesn’t have such a magic power. He can’t bring himself to forget that DBSK has always been (and will always be in a way) a group of five. He does learn how to accept it though.

He decides to call the one person that deserves to know he’s made it out alive first. He feels a lump forming in his throat when the call goes through on the third ring.

“Changmin–’ He can hear her smile from the other line already.

-

Ironically, Changmin starts dating Qian around the same time Yoona breaks things off with Donghae. 

Out of all this mess, he isn’t sure what irritates him more- the fact that she was the one talking Qian into asking him out or that she’s been avoiding him like the plague ever since his relationship with Qian has been made official.

He doesn’t see her for days on end, her phone is always on voice message mode whenever he calls. It’s like she’s walking away, like she’s walking out of his life.

-

“I need a reason.” He manages in between catching his breath after sprinting from the second floor down the foyer like a maniac after catching a glimpse of her walking into the lift.

“What?” She scoffs, shrugging off his grip on her elbow.

“I need to know why you are acting like we’re strangers.”

“You know it won’t work.” Yoona says at length, standing upright to look him in the eye.

“You’re my best friend!” He breaks out, causing a few people around to startle and throwing curious glances at them. “You can’t just stop being in my life without a reason. You can’t just–”

“You have Qian. Why don’t you just leave me alone?” She whispers, afraid that raising her voice would only cut deeper into her heart.

“That’s absurd.” Changmin laughs, throwing both his hands up. “You had Donghae and we–”

“It never worked out. We broke up.” She cuts in harshly. “It’s best to keep distance. No one’s going to get hurt that way.” Her voice is quite but sharp.

It breaks him more than he cares to admit (given the fact that he’s already bruised and battered).

-

A couple of months into the relationship, Qian calls it quits.

She clenches her eyes. Then opens them and slaps him squarely in the face.

“I loved you but you never loved me for just one second.” She packs her things and leaves without sparing him a glance.

He isn’t surprised or shocked anymore. He’s used to watching people walk away.

-

‘I know my timings are always bad.’ She chuckles a little. ‘We’re in New York preparing for our concert here. The weather is extremely nice and the fans have been treating us really well. Have I told you about the food? It feels like heaven.’

She trails off slightly to take in a deep breath.

‘I heard about the break-up. Don’t blame yourself, it’s not your entire fault. Sometimes relationships just don’t work the way you want. I am sorry.’

A few seconds later. ‘I –’

Beep.

-

SM throws a Christmas party at its headquarter. It’s crowded and all the chatter gets drowned by the music that’s blasting from the stereos. In an attempt to stay away from Qian (their interactions still have ‘awkward’ written all over), Changmin escapes to the roof.

It is deserted and utterly unsafe but there are breezes of fresh air instead of smoke, and all this Christmas vibe that is suffocating him.

She’s so small that he doesn’t recognize her silhouette until he’s a few feet away.

“I wouldn’t do it if I were you.” He says jokingly, careful not to startle her as she’s sitting there on the ledge with her legs dangling in the air.

Yoona glances at him over her shoulders, a small smile forming.

“You should try it sometimes.” She motions to the spot next to her. “And now he’s sitting.” She comments off-handedly as Changmin settles.

“What are you doing here? There’s a party going on downstairs.”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?”

“You know things don’t go smooth when you’re trapped in four walls with your ex waltzing around.”

“Believe me, I have been there. It’s not as black as it is painted.”

“What is then?” He raises an imperious eyebrow.

“Well,” She looks pointedly around the roof as if she would be able to find an answer right then and there. “Loving someone but being too much of a coward to admit it for example.” The words slip out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

The words uttered from her lips carry much more gravity than she assumed. He doesn’t flinch or act as if being struck by a lightning. She, for once, doesn’t tear her gaze away from him or slip off the ledge to walk her way to the stairs. There’s no turning back from that.

“Believe me, I have been there. It’s not as black as it is painted.” He muses.

“How come?” Their eyes are still locked- a tacitly agreed upon eye-staring competition that neither of them can afford to lose.

“That someone you’re talking about could be very well in the same situation.”

Her heart springs from her chest, her head whirls around and her whole world is spinning from its axes just by his small confession. Even breathing becomes such a difficult task since she can’t slow down the beating of her own heart.

Changmin leans in closer and presses his lips against hers- soft with a mild taste of wine and strawberry. If he has learnt anything out of it, it is that a kiss can indeed stop time. And just like in the romantic movies he often despises, everything else blurs away when his lips touch hers.

Yoona smiles into the kiss, running her fingers through his hair.

(There’s a faint whisper he can’t quite make out leaving her lips in between, there are tears trickling down her cheek he isn’t aware of)

-

A week later, the news about SNSD’s Yoona and Lee Seung Gi are spread all over the net. Turns out she’s been going out with him for three months already.

Changmin wonders if the kiss on the rooftop happened after all. Everything seems much more like a fragment of his imagination now that Yoona is (once again) going out with someone else.

‘Loving someone but being too much of a coward to admit it…’ the sound of her voice, the look in her eyes- they haunt him in his waking hours and dreams alike.

-

Yoona pretends her eyes aren’t searching for him every damn time she knows he’s around, she pretends she isn’t shuddering every time Seung Gi kisses her and all she can think of is that kiss on the rooftop, she pretends her heart doesn’t stop every time she sees him on a billboard down the street or on the cover of a magazine at the hair salon.

Most despicable of all, she pretends she’s in love.

-

‘Yoona, remember that small Sushi restaurant around the corner of Cheongdam-dong we always planned to go to but never really had the chance to? I went there today after my meeting with my manager by coincidence and it was mouth-watering. I kept thinking about you the whole time. It was weird not having you there. It is weird not having you in my life. I–”

Beep.

-

Yoona breaks up with Seung Gi only weeks before their two years anniversary.

Seung Gi doesn’t say a single word. He loves her too much to fight for her because he knows deep down there is no place for him in her heart. He knew from the beginning that her heart was never truly his.

(He randomly found a polaroid of her and Changmin sandwiched in the middle of her favorite book on the shelf, he saw the subtle exchange they had at a dinner together- the way their gaze linger and his hand brushed against her arm obliviously, he stumbled upon a small box consisting of a few DBSK albums, a white mug, a flannel shirt and some post-it notes with terrible handwriting when Yoona asked him to take out the box with house decoration stuff.)

A boy who loved too much and a girl who didn’t love him enough- that is bound to be a recipe for disaster, isn’t it?

-

Jessica leaves. Nine turns into eight.

Yoona doesn’t shed a single tear, not when Jessica drags her medium sized suitcase out of the dorm, not when their manager announces the news officially.

It’s just another cut, another wound.

(She’s gone through much worse than that. Out of all members, she is the one being called the attention-seeker, the pretty talentless one. She used to cry herself into sleep because hateful remarks tend to cut a little bit deeper than one could imagine. She had to work day and night until her body gave up to prove that a pretty face isn’t everything she’s got. Worst of all, she had to put on a smile even when she was unwillingly pushed to the middle, the spotlight she never asked for but had the responsibility to carry.

This is nothing, really. She’s been in this world long enough to know there is no bond that could last a life time. So it shouldn’t get to her. It shouldn’t but it does.)

-

She finds herself waving down a cab in the middle of the night after three days of barely eating and sleepless nights. She scribbles down his address on a piece of paper and gives it to the driver.

As she rushes up the stairs to his apartment, she sees him sitting on the stairs leading up to his floor. A heavy weight lifted itself from her chest just by the sight of him. By the look of it he must have been expecting her in some kind of ways.

Changmin rises from his seat and descends the stairs to where she is standing. He takes her in his arms wordlessly.

It’s only then that she lets her tears fall.

-

They fall into old routines of eating out, long night calls and terribly long voice messages.

-

Yoona’s the last person to know about his decision to enlist in the military force.

She doesn’t come barging through his doors, demanding an explanation as to why he didn’t tell her earlier on. She doesn’t make a phone call yelling at him throughout most of the conversation. She doesn’t even leave him a voice message.

Im Yoona stays quiet which, of all things, scares him the most.

-

They are running circles. Both know it and yet neither of them makes the effort to stand still. It’s better to dance around than face the music.

Yoona and Changmin have never been good at dealing with facts anyway. Funny how they are dragged into fighting losing battles again and again. No one stands a chance of winning and at the same time no one is ready to be the one losing.

-

Yoona calls him the night before he departs.

As usual, the phone call goes straight to his answering machine after the sixth ring. Changmin sits across the room, legs crossed, eyes staring at the red blinking button. The corner of his lips turn up slightly when he hears her chuckle.

How long has it been? 3 months? 2 months? (2 months and 12 days, to be exact.)

‘I know you wouldn’t pick up. You would be on the other side of the room in your ugly striped shirt and grey pants, you would be there half wanting to pick up, half wanting to pretend you’re not there.’

The fact that she can hurt him by telling the truth throws him off balance every single time.

‘You told me you were considering to go. You just conveniently left out the part it would be by the end of this year.’

She chokes a little at the end, desperately covering it up by another one of her chuckles.

‘I wanted to let you go without a good-bye but that wouldn’t be right for me, for you and for us. It was so stupid of me to think I could erase you off my mind. The harder I try to forget, the more I seem to remember. How…how do you kill a feeling?’

Changmin’s heart constricts at the question. He’s close to flinging himself into picking up the phone and screaming at the top of his voice that feelings aren’t supposed to go away, that he can’t sit by and watch that happen.

‘God…’ Yoona’s voice breaks. ‘I–’

Changmin closes his eyes, bracing himself for the loud and shrill ‘beep’ that is certain to follow. It doesn’t come. There is only a deafening silence that tears his walls down to the ground.

‘I hate you.’

Beep.

-

In the span of 5 years Changmin comes back from the army, SNSD disbands, DBSK is nothing more than a legendary band that used to be, Yoona opens her own restaurant and Changmin pursues his long forgotten dream of becoming a doctor.

(In the span of 5 years, Yoona rushes to the airport a few minutes too late, Changmin spends most of his nights waiting for a call that doesn’t happen, Yoona leaves him post-it notes he never gets, Changmin makes it a point to walk past her restaurant every morning and Yoona writes him numerous letters she can’t bring herself to send.)

-

Yoona swears from the next day onwards she is going to turn off her phone before going to bed. She can’t risk having some jerks drunk dialing her every other night. Yoona groans in disdain when the phone call goes to the voice message mode.

The last time it happened she received a long heartfelt declaration of love from a mentally disturbed guy who assumed it was alright to cheat on his girlfriend as long as he would discover that she was, indeed, the love of his life.

‘I know it’s late and you’re probably sleeping.’

She hops off her bed upon hearing the all too familiar voice, almost yanking the sheets along with her and fumbles in the dark for the light switch. Her heart speed is picking up as she struggles with catching her breath.

‘I tried living my life by leaving everything that once mattered to me behind. I realized I could never do that. People still stop me on the street asking for autographs and photos, Yunho still calls me up once in a while for a beer and …’

Yoona slowly slumps down onto the single chair next to the round wooden table. She’s only one reach away from the phone.

‘I still have that polaroid of us taken at the first SM Town concert we performed at. Believe it or not, I even have a box full of your things stored under my bed- your black mug, your white socks with red dots, all the post-it notes you wrote me, and some of your interviews cut from newspapers.’

‘I–’

Yoona picks up the phone before the line goes dead.


End file.
